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DISCOURSE 






EDWARD EVERETT, 



BY FREDERIC HENRY HEDGE. 




DISCOURSE 



EDWARD EYERETT, 



DELIVERED IN THE 



CHURCH OF THE FIRST PARISH, BROOKLIXE, 



<)N THE TWENTY-SECOND JANUARY. 



By FREDERIC HENRY HEDGE. 




B S T X : 

PBESS "I GEO. C. RAND & IVERY, No. S, CORNHILL. 

1 8 6 5. 



E '5 4-0 



DISCOURSE. 



DISCOURSE 



" Honor to whom honor."— ROM. xiii. 7. 

( )vr Commonwealth mourns in these days the loss 
of its brightest ornament ; the nation, of one of its 
ablest statesmen, its wisest counsellors, its truest and 
mosl devoted servants. The death of Mr. Everett, 
of which last Sunday brought us the tidings as we 
came to this place of our devotions, is felt to be a 
national calamity: it shares, for the moment, the na- 
tional intercut with the great events of the war. 

The man who for half a century, with brief excep- 
tional intervals, had been in the public service, belongs 
to the public; his life and character and name are 
public property; and. when he departs out of our 
sight, they remain a public interest and concern ; a 
study for the Church as well as the world ; inviting 
discussion from the pulpit, as well as the rostrumand 
the press. 

Ii is not my purpose to present yon with a sketch 
of this rich and illustrious life. 1 shall not attempt 
to enumerate the many and distinguished services 
of our fellow-citizen, nor will I undertake the analy- 
sisofhis intellectual and moral character, but confine 



6 

myself to one or two points of special interest, or t<> 
such as seem to me to possess a moral significance. 

The lirst thing which suggests itself, in our recol- 
lection of Mr. Everett, is the admirable genius of the 
man as displayed in public speech. In this particu- 
lar, he lias had no superior in this country, — per- 
haps no equal, considering the scope of his rhetorical 
vocation, the wide variety and great dissimilarity of 
the topics, interests, occasions, assemblies, platforms, 
which claimed his advocacy or exercised his powers. 
Others of our national orators may have excelled him 
in one or another particular, — some in popular ha- 
rangue, some in forensic debate. Mr. Clay's impulsive 
vehemence would tell with more thrilling effect on 
the passions of a miscellaneous auditory ; Mr. Web- 
ster's ponderous strength would strike a more amaz- 
ing blow in the senate or the court. But not to 
speak of learning and high intellectual culture, in 
which he confessedly excelled not only these, but all 
American orators, neither Webster nor Clay possessed 
the breadth and versatility and mental resources of 
Mr. Everett. Neither they, nor any other speaker 
within my knowledge, could vie with him in easy as- 
cent, in ready association of ideas, in prompt sugges- 
tion and fertile invention, in facility of transition, in 
exuberant fancy, in rich and graceful ornamentation, 
and that astonishing memory, that uniform command 
of his powers, which made him equal to every occa- 



sion, suit to interest every assembly, and equally in- 
teresting from beginning to end of his discourse. 
His pinion never drooped, his hearers never wearied. 
( Mher orators might excel him in particular instances ; 
but no speaker to whom I have ever listened, without 
trick or bait, addressing the reason only, speaking in 
a "-rave wav on grave subjects, could so command and 
hold the attention of a crowded assembly for consecu- 
tive hours. 

But those who have known the great orator only 
iii bis later efforts can hardly appreciate the fascina- 
tion which he exercised on youthful hearers in his 
own youth. A measure of scholarly learning un- 
common in this country at that time; a poetic fancy; 
extraordinary beauty of person; the rich tones of a 
wonderfully cadenced voice; graceful hearing: a dig- 
nity beyond his years; a certain line and mysterious 
reserve, which curbed, without impairing, the fervor of 
his discourse, — all this gave to his appearance and 
performance an ideal something, which seemed to 
denote a superior being, distinguishing him from all 
other speakers, nol only in degree, hut in kind. — 
something which brought to mind the Greek divini- 
ties of classic renown. Mv recollection does not em- 
brace the period of his ministry as a pulpit orator. 
Bui those who remember him in that capacity will 
tell you, that, young as he was, — a youth of twenty, 
— no preacher in this community was heard with 



greater admiration and delight. I recall him only as 
a secular orator. My first experience of his marvel- 
lous power in that line was the famous oration deliv- 
ered hefore the University at Camhridge, in the pres- 
ence of Lafayette, then visiting this country of his 
early fame ; a performance which made an era in the 
literary history of the college, as it did in the intel- 
lectual history of many who heard it. The address 
to the honored guest drew tears from the veteran's 
eyes. All present were profoundly stirred. The vast 
assemhly was fused together in one emotion. I sup- 
pose there was never an oration, spoken on a similar 
occasion and to such an audience, which affected so 
powerfully the sensibilities of those who heard it. 

This first great effort of his early manhood estab- 
lished Mr. Everett's fame as an orator, and occasioned 
his nomination and election to a seat in the National 
Congress, — the beginning of his political career. 
Then followed in constant succession, interrupted 
only by his four-years' residence abroad, an astonish- 
ing number of orations and allocutions, pronounced 
on all possible occasions, civic, academic, political, his- 
torical, festive, and funereal, many of Avhich are print- 
ed, and fill large volumes. They are characterized by 
perspicuity of statement, skilful arrangement, grace- 
ful method, massiveness of composition, felicity of 
illustration, purity of thought, nobility of sentiment, 
simplicity of diction. They place their author among 



the very first orators, not of this age and country 
<inly. but of all time. 

The remarkable quality in Mr. Everett's genius, thai 
which underlies and causes the eminent truthfulness 
of all his performances, is moderation. I call it a 
quality of his genius. It was equally conspicuous in 
his moral conduct: it was the quality of the man. 
Moderation, in ordinary men. is often a weakness. 
Many, who have it in perfection, have nothing else ; 
they are all moderation : lint, unfortunately, there is 
nothing to moderate, no precipitancy, no exuberant 
force, no enthusiasm, no hot passion, no rushing, eager 
enterprise. It is the moderation of a dull canal. 
One would welcome in such characters a little ex- 
citement, an occasional indiscretion, as a sign of life. 
But moderation in greal men is a noble quality, and 
a part of their greatness, like the moderation of 
tic earth's centrifugal motion liv the countervailing 
centripetal, [ndeed, there is no real, effective, com- 
manding greatness without this quality, hut onlv 
flashes anil spurts, — wild sallies of a lawless force, 
which may dazzle for the moment, but spends itself 
without profit, leaves no permanent trace, ami dies 
of its own fury. This precisely distinguishes genius 
from the lesser lights that counterfoil it, thai it knows 
how to discipline and govern itself, to curb its exuber- 
ant fancy, to restrain its lawless outbreaks, to check 
and guide its forces to riehl and healthful issues. 



10 

Self-control, self-possession, it is. that distinguishes the 
masters in art and the masters in life from bunglers 
and visionaries and fanatics. The direction to the 
players, which the great poet puts into the mouth of 
his hero, — " in the very torrent, tempest, and whirl- 
wind of their passion, to acquire and beget a temper- 
ance that may give it smoothness." — is applicable to 
all the uses of art and to all the business of life. 
The prevailing vice of American oratory — as, alas! 
of so many other American doings — is extravagance, 
exaggerated statement, hyperbolical imagery, over- 
done sentiment, counterfeit enthusiasm, superfluous 
verbiage, riotous invective, and all that straining alter 
coarse effect commonly known as " sensation," prop- 
erly so called; inasmuch as it aims to astonish, over- 
whelm, and harrow, and in every way to create a 
momentary, strong sensation in vulgar minds, and be- 
cause it awakens a sensation of profound disgust in 
thoughtful and disciplined hearers anil readers. The 
public meeting, the deliberative assembly, the floor 
of Congress, the platform, the stump, in some cases 
the pulpit even, resound with this kind of rhetoric; 
the newspapers and popular magazines glister and 
froth with it. Calm, rational discourse, in which the 
manner is subordinate to the matter, or rather in 
which the weight and value of the matter tones and 
tempers the manner: discourse which derives its 
beauty and force from within, and not from any trick 



11 

of garnish or veneer; discourse that aims simply to 
instruct by reason and facts, or to edify by the justice 
and nobility of its sentiment, — although not wanting 
in the ordinary course of professional efforts, is sel- 
dom heard from American lips that are wont to 
address large popular assemblies on secular themes. 
The lips of Mr. Everett uttered no other. His speech 
is wise and temperate and calm; or. rising with his 
theme, excited only when the matter and occasion 
justify more glowing terms and a higher strain. He 
never deals in superlatives, lint seems unconsciously 
to have followed the prescription of a celebrated 
author, who says that "the most universal rule for 
the writer, as well as the artist, is. that his expression 
he always beneath the thing which he represents." 
Not often does he condescend to rhetorical tricks to 
heighten the flavor and enhance the effect of his dis- 
course; and never, never, does he indulge in railing 
and bitter invective, or seek a momentary, cheap tri- 
umph by heaping obloquy on his opponents. His 
speeches are free from extravagance, live from vague 
declamation, from tawdry ornament, from puling sen- 
timentality ; above all. free from virulence and bitter- 
ness. They are solid and clean ; and in and through 
these qualities they will live when the works and the 

very n mass of a hundred contemporary popular speak- 
ers are forgotten. 

The self-possession which distinguished him as 



o 



12 

orator, and which formed so striking a trait of Mr. 
Everett's genius, was in his character as well as his 
speech : it, was thoroughly inwrought in the man. 
An imperturbable dignity enveloped him like an 
atmosphere, accompanying all his ways. Even as 
a child, he is said to have been distinguished not less 
by the dignity of his manners than by his shining 
and precocious gifts. There was nothing loose, un- 
"irt, or dishevelled, in his bearing. Mr. Carlvle, in a 
letter to a friend, describes him happily as a " com- 
pact man." Though given to humor, and apt to in- 
dulge in playful talk, and though capable of moral 
indignation like every earnest and right-minded 
man, he was never unduly excited in the way of 
anger or of mirth ; never carried bevond himself. 
No vehement tones, no spasms, no boisterous demon- 
stration. His habitual self-command extended to 
his very looks. His face was no book wherein one 
might read the workings of his mind. Such control, 
perhaps 1 should say. such immobility of feature, 
one shall rarely see in so sensitive a man. When 
not engaged in public discourse, his countenance 
seemed to lack animation, giving no response by 
light or shade, by Hashing eye or quivering lip, by 
heightened or vanishing color, to the passing scene 
or the words that fell on his ear. No change of 
feature betrayed his thought, or revealed emotion, if 
any there were to reveal. Those slow-moving eves. 



13 

with their burdened lids, — you watched them in vain 
in the public assembly for any expression of satis- 
faction or dissent. Did they see what passed '.' Did 
the soul behind them partake in what passed'.' They 
gave no sign. 

It follows almost of course, from this predominant 
trait, that Mr. Everett was not a popular man. A 
reserve so impenetrable, dignity so severe, would 
necessarily isolate him. repelling familiarity. What- 
ever he may have been in the privacy of the family- 
circle, he was not one with whom a stranger slid 
into easy relations, — not one to whom a companion 
would pour himself forth, or who would pour him- 
self forth to him. "His soul was like a star, and 
dwelt apart." Though uniformly affable, and inno- 
cent of arrogance or pride, there seemed to he a 
near and impassable harrier to intimate communion. 
Friends, of such as honored and loved him. he had 
many: friends, in the sense of easy confidential fel- 
low-hip. he had \\-\v. lie was not popular; per- 
haps it was a weakness that he was not. — a too icy 
reserve, a too fastidious shrinking from nearer con- 
tact with hi- kind. But, on the other hand, it is the 

weaknesses of men, nay, — a certain amount of merit 
beins eiven, — it is their imperfections, their very 
follies, thai make them popular, rather than their 
virtues. It is these that place them on a level with 
their race, compensating thus the superior ability 



14 

which had seemed to divide them from the rest of 
mankind. Men love to feel that the great man has 
this at least in common with them. The public 
jester is popular; the jovial, careless liver is popu- 
lar ; the censor, whether by open reproof or the 
silent rebuke of an austere life, is not. Clay was 
popular, Sheridan was popular, Charles II. was 
popular, Mirabeau was popular ; Milton, Burke, 
Aristides, Washington, were not. Mr. Everett shared 
none of those pursuits, was addicted to none of 
those habits or amusements, which bring men into 
closer fellowship and facilitate confidential com- 
munion. He was not a boon-companion, not a lover 
of games; he took no pleasure in the killing of 
birds or fishes ; his habits were studious and recluse. 
He was not popular : by so much the more signifi- 
cant is the deep sensation caused by his death; so 
much the more valuable, as testimony to the real 
worth of the man, is the universal, spontaneous, 
heartfelt demonstration of respect to his memory, — 
a demonstration prompted by no superficial liking, 
but wrung from the grateful heart, and enforced by 
the deepest moral judgment of the people whom lie 
served with the strength of his manhood and the 
last ripe fruits of his age, with his life and with his 
death, — a tribute such as is rarely accorded to any 
individual in any age; more unqualified and sincere, 
it seems to me. than any American has received 



1ft 

since Washington. "Call no man happy," said the 
wise Athenian. " until his death." The death is often 
the interpreter and key to the lite. What a life 
must that have been of which such a death is the 
exponent ! A rich and varied, eventful, laborious, 
honorable life! That brief compendium of the pub- 
lic history of its graduates, the Catalogue of Har- 
vard College, appends to the name of Everett a 
longer, fuller tale of offices and honors than to any 
other, in a record which embraces more than two 
hundred years in its annals. All the honors which 
this country has in its gift, beside academic and 
literary honors bestowed abroad, have been con- 
ferred upon him, — all hut that one which should 
be the highest, hut from which, as we know, in our 
div. their very worth has excluded the worthies! 
men. 

In his public career, as a statesman and poli- 
tician, Mr. Everett has been singularly self-consisteni ; 
and though that, in itself, is not the jewel which the 
current proverb would make it. it becomes so when 
conscientious action is the stuff it adonis. Thor- 
oughly and consistently patriotic I believe him to 
have been, as he interpreted the duty and demand 
f patriotism in the cases in which he was called to 
act. Bis interpretation mighl differ from yours and 
mine; but, such as it was. he acted upon it with un- 
swerving fidelity. A.bove cabal and intrigue, lie 



o 



16 

preferred before private or merely party interest 
what he conceived to be public good. He sometimes 
erred, as it seemed to me then, as it seems to me 
now. He erred through excessive caution. He pur- 
sued that misjudged policy of concession to the 
insolent claims of the South, which has been the 
source of all our woe; when resolute resistance, if it 
could not avert secession, would have crushed it in 
the bud. His motive, I believe, was as pure in this, 
it was the same in this, as that which dictated his 
patriotic efforts in these latter years. It was love of 
the Union, which he believed might be saved by con- 
conciliation, not perceiving that no conciliation would 
avail which left to the North a relic of freedom. 

He was not an antislavery man. 1 regret to have 
it to say that he was not ; that he placed the letter 
of the Constitution above the idea and the purpose 
which lie at the basis of that Union, whose instru- 
ment the Constitution is. — above the natural rights 
of man ; that, while his heart was penetrated 
with the purest spirit of humanity, the theory of 
humanity in its application to this subject was 
foreign to his mind. Yet it is my sincere belief, that. 
if his lot had been cast at the South, he would have 
I) sen a kinder master, an 1 more likely to have given 
his slaves their freedom, than some abolitionists 
whom 1 have known. Though not an antislavery 
man. anil though pursuing what 1 conceive to have 



17 



been ;i mistaken policy towards the South, he was 
not so blind or so indifferenl to the encroachments of 
the slave-power, nor so regardless of the rights of 
the North, as to yield without resistance the repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise, lie entered his strong 
protest againsl that nefarious measure, — the ruthless 
violation of a solemn covenant between the two sec- 
tions, designed to secure their mutual rights. This, 
too. 1 honor in him, that alter the fatal rupture which 
divided the land, when the wish to approve himself 
personally in the eyes of the South could no longer 
be imputed to him as a motive, and while throwing 
himself with all his talent and all his influence on 
the side of the North, he did not. for the sake of 
popularity with the loyal States, pretend to be in 
theory more the enemy of slavery than he had been ; 
he did not pretend to any sudden conversion; lie did 
not pretend to have held or to hold any different 
theory on the subject ; although, as a measure of 
policy, he favored emancipation. 

lli~ whole action is to be interpreted from the 
point of view of dutiful regard to the common weal. 
— of conscientious and devoted patriotism. In this 
he was thoroughly, beautifully, heroically self-con- 
sistent. It is my deliberate conviction that this 
country had never a more faithful and devoted lover, 
never a more patriotic citizen, as certainly it has 
had few abler. In the service of the Union, with a 



18 

view to maintain and confirm the sole bond which 
seemed to him still to bind in one consciousness the 
distracted nation, referring all sections and factions 
to a common centre of love, he undertook a labori- 
ous mission in the interest of the memory of Wash- 
ington. Soliciting nothing, but using the simple 
income of his eloquence, traversing the country 
from east to west, from north to south, "in journey- 
ings often," ''in labors more abundant," "in weari- 
ness and painfulness," he collected a sum amounting 
nearly, I believe, to a hundred thousand dollars. — a 
fact unexampled in the history of oratory. At an 
age when, without the stimulus of necessity, most 
men shrink from incurring literary responsibilities 
involving rapid and stated production, he entered 
into an engagement to furnish weekly contributions 
for a year, to a popular journal, in aid of the same 
cause. — the purchase, for a national possession, of 
the Mount -Vernon estate. 

It has been charged upon him as an inconsistency, 
or even as a recreant act. that he, who in 1860 was a 
candidate for the Vice-Presidency on a ticket which 
represented a different policy, should in 1804 allow 
himself to be an elector of the very man to whom 
he was then opposed. There was no recreancy and 
no inconsistency here. So long as there remained 
the shadow of a hope that the Union might be pre- 
served by conciliatory measures, and an administra- 



19 

tion representing both parties, he was willing to sacri- 
fice every thing but principle and conscience to thai 
much-desired end. And it was to him a real sacri- 
fice of personal feeling to allow himself to be u*r<\ 
for that purpose in that way. But when, in the 
spring of L861, the die was cast ; when the fatal blow 
was struck; when Secession, not content with peace- 
able separation, made war upon the Union, — then at 
once, without a moment's hesitation, as quickly and 
as surely as the hall first aimed at Fort Sumter fol- 
lowed the Hash of the gun that sent it, he made his 
election, with heart and soul and mind and hand, 
with counsel and exhortation, with voice and pen. to 
stand by the Union, by the dear old flag of his alle- 
giance, by the country of his birth and his vows. 
And since standing by the country in a time of war 
was identified, in his logical and conscientious mind, 
with standing by the < rovernment, ^>y the Administra- 
tion which represented the country, and on whom its 
burdens and responsibilities were laid, he became at 
once the fast friend of the Administration, determined 
by all means, with all his powers, to strengthen its 
bands, to plead its cause, and. so far as might he, to 
lighten its beavj load. With what ability and with 
what success lie has done this, with what generous, 
untiring, self-sacrificing devotion, through all the 
years of this war. he has followed this high ministry, 



20 

and borne his share of the universal burden, is known 
to all the citizens of this land ; and known to all is 
that beautiful episode in his labors, — his persevering 
efforts in behalf of the suffering Unionists of Tennes- 
see, which resulted in the contribution of the sum of 
a hundred thousand dollars to that noble charity. 

Thus did our civil hero, by the strong persuasion 
of his eloquent lips and the valor of his pen, fight 
the civil and social battle of the Union, with as much 
true heroism, I dare to say, and as much self-sacrifi- 
cing devotion, as any chief on the army-roll who has 
led his serried ranks to victory in the held. If Web- 
ster was thought, by his official labors in the Senate 
of the United States, to merit the title, " Defender of 
the Constitution," with equal justice has Everett, by 
his unofficial, voluntary labors, merited the title, "De- 
fender of the Union." 

For no service which he rendered, official or unof- 
ficial, as servant of the Stale or as voluntary ser- 
vant of the people, did he take any bribe. He never 
mulcted his constituents, nor received a dollar be- 
yond the stated salary of his office. Far from receiv- 
ing, it was his better and more blessed privilege to 
give. A hundred thousand dollars, the fruit of his 
labors with tongue and pen. he gave to promote tin- 
ea use of Union through the nation's common interest 
in the memory of Washington; a hundred thousand 



21 

more he was chiefly instrumental in procuring as a 
contribution to the charities of the war. 

His private life was as spotless as his public course 
was patriotic and sincere. No breath of reproach 
ever sullied his fair repute; and no duties, according 
to the testimony of those who know best, were more 
faithfully and thoughtfully discharged by him than 
those of husband, father, and friend. Many were the 
offices of honor and trust which he filled with the 
lio-ht of his beneficent genius. An ordained minister 
of the gospel at the age of twenty; professor in the 
neighboring university, and afterwards its president- 
a member, at different periods, of both houses of 
Congress; governor of this Commonwealth; ambassa- 
dor at the court of St. James ; secretary of state in 
the national cabinet ; yet noblest and greatest of all. 
in these latter years, as a private citizen. — his way of 
life, as 1 survey it in the retrospect, comes to me as a 
zodiac of luminous progress, -shining brighter and 
brighter unto the perfect day." 

The closing scene of this life, its last public act. 
preceding by a few short days its disappearance to 
mortal sight, was what he himself would have wished 
it to In-, what every friend must rejoice to remember, 
— an art of charity ; a plea for the people of Savan- 
nah, returning to their allegiance, and asking aid for 
their de-tit ute starving city. 

And hen- 1 notice a striking and beautiful relation 



92 



of correspondence between the beginning and the 
end. Mr. Everett's first public act — I mean the first 
spontaneous act in which he appeared before the 
general public, outside of the duties of his profession 
— was his •• Defence of Christianity ; " a book which he 
published, at the age of twenty, in answer to an infi- 
del attack. At the age of twenty, a plea for theoreti- 
cal Christianity ; and now. at the age of seventy, after 
an interval of half a century, a plea for practical 
Christianity, urging his' fellow-citizens to heap coals 
of the fire of Christian love on the heads of their 
enemies. '• Do you say that they were lately our 
enemies'.''' he pleads. "I am convinced that the ma- 
jority, the great majority, were so but nominally. 
But what if they were our enemies. ' If thine enemy 
hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him drink ; ' es- 
pecially when he has laid down his arms, and submits 
to your power." 

Between the theoretical and the practical plea, a 
half-century of solid, useful, noble work, a hall-cen- 
tury devoted to the public good, a hall-century of 
magnificent talent employed like a faithful steward 
for worthy and beneficent ends. What better legacy 
than the influence of such a life can a man leave be- 
hind him when he goes hence'.' What better outfit 
than the spirit of such a life can a man take with 
him on his voyage to the undiscovered land '.' 

When the proto-martyr of the Christian Church. 



23 

on the eve of his death, harangued the people in de- 
fence of the faith, -all that sat in the council, looking 
steadfastly on him, saw his Tare as it had been the 
face of an angel." Those who heard Mr. Everett on 
that last occasion affirm that his countenance wore 
an unusual lustre, free from those traces of suffering 
it so often exhibited in these last years. Was it the 
transfiguration of the earthly through the forereach- 
ing heavenly so close at hand '.' 

Blessed be the Father of lights, who gave us this 
light on our path ! — another guide to patient well- 
doing, and final victory. 



W 7S 



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